Hi,
Air France B777 F/O here, in the company since 1998.
Facts : record of safety is really bad, on its own or compared to similar sized western companies.
Context : French culture, historically state-owned company whose management is still nowadays decided by the government, even though the state does not own the majority of stakes, several badly managed mergers leading to bitterness, civil aviation environment heavily biased towards airbus via the Dgac/government, in short airfrance was for a long time more of an administration than an airline company.
We always thought we were the best, while crashing planes.
Now, people have to know that things are really changing from the inside, and unfortunatly it took the rio to start the change
We, as a company, acknowledged we needed help, and asked the 'isrt' (independent safety review team) to analyse and make propositions for change :
http://epoca.globo.com/edic/687/687_..._em_ingles.pdf
The team composition :
Curt Graeber, PhD, Boeing Human factors chief
John Marshall Delta safety and security chief
Geoff Sartori Quantas safety chief
and more....
They issued this report and measures are steadily being implemented, and closely followed by our pilot's union.
The LOSA (line operation safety audit) has been performed, and measures are implemented following the results.
We adopted the aiplane manufacturers SOP, we are reorganising our Dispatch, changing our charts provider, rethinking our check and training philosophy, and many other things.
The truth is, this kind of change requires at least 10 years, as it is the whole structure and company culture who are evolving (finally...and already too late for the deads in the rio and concord accident).
My message won't change the airfrance bashing on these boards, and some arguments here are justified, and acknowledged, while others are hatred, but this is the internet^^
But we know we must learn from everyone to improve, or we will disappear.
Safe flights.